“Die without confession!” she said to her; “go to Hell, monster of ingratitude; belong to no one but the devil. For the blood you have given him, you owe me all of yours! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths, I’ve been too kind, I just took a little while to kill you, I could have made you suffer all the torments you pressed on me. I will live! I will live unhappy, I am reduced to loving no one but God!” She contemplated her. “She is dead!” she said to herself after a pause, coming violently back to herself. “Dead! Ah! I will die of suffering!”
The Marquise wanted to throw herself on the divan, overwhelmed by a despair that took her voice away, and this movement allowed her to see Henri de Marsay.
“Who are you?” she asked him, running to him with her dagger raised.
Henri stopped her arm, and they could thus contemplate each other face to face. Horrible surprise made frozen blood flow in the veins of both of them, and they trembled on their legs like frightened horses. In fact, two twins couldn’t have resembled each other more. They both said the same thing: “Is Lord Dudley your father, then?”
Each of them nodded in the affirmative.
“She was faithful to blood, at least,” Henri said, pointing at Paquita.
“She was as free of guilt as possible,” Margarita-Euphémia Porrabéril continued, throwing herself on Paquita’s body and letting out a cry of despair. “Poor girl! Oh! If only I could bring you back to life! I was wrong, forgive me, Paquita! You are dead, and yet I live! I am the unhappiest woman there is.”
At that instant the horrible face of Paquita’s mother appeared.
“You’re going to tell me you didn’t sell her to me so that I could kill her,” the Marquise cried out. “I know why you’re coming out of your den. I’ll pay you for her twice. Be quiet.”
And she went to get a bag of gold out of the ebony wardrobe, scornfully throwing it at the feet of this old woman. The sound of gold had the power to outline a smile on the motionless physiognomy of the Georgian woman.
“I’ve come just in time for you, my sister,” Henri said. “The law will ask you.…”
“Nothing,” the Marquise replied. “One single person knew about this girl. Christemio is dead.”
“And this mother,” Henri asked, pointing to the old lady, “won’t she want a ransom for her?”
“She comes from a country where women aren’t human beings, but things with which you do what you want, things that are bought and sold, things that are killed—things used only for your whims, the way you use furniture here. In any case, she has a passion that makes all other passions give in, and that would have annihilated her maternal love, if she had loved her daughter; a passion …”
“Which one?” Henri said impatiently, interrupting his sister.
“Gambling; may God keep you from it!” the Marquise replied.
“But who are you going to get to help you,” Henri said, pointing to the Girl with the Golden Eyes, “to remove the traces of this fantasy, so that the law won’t prosecute you?”
“I have her mother,” the Marquise replied, pointing to the old Georgian woman, to whom she made a sign to stay.
“We will see each other again,” Henri said, thinking about his friends’ anxiety, and realizing the necessity of leaving.
“No, my brother,” she said, “we will never see each other again. I am going back to Spain to enter the convent of Los Dolores.”
“You’re still too young, too beautiful,” Henri said, taking her in his arms and giving her a kiss.
“Farewell,” she said, “nothing can console me for losing what seemed to us both the Infinite Being.”
Eight days later, Paul de Manerville met de Marsay at the Tuileries, on the terrace of the Feuillants.
“Well then, what’s become of our beautiful Girl with the Golden Eyes, you big rascal?”
“She died.”
“From what?”
“Her chest.”
Paris, March 1834—April 1835
melville house classics
OTHER TITLES IN
THE ART OF THE NOVELLA SERIES
BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER / HERMAN MELVILLE
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER / HENRY JAMES
MY LIFE / ANTON CHEKHOV
THE DEVIL / LEO TOLSTOY
THE TOUCHSTONE / EDITH WHARTON
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES / ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
THE DEAD / JAMES JOYCE
FIRST LOVE / IVAN TURGENEV
A SIMPLE HEART / GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING / RUDYARD KIPLING
MICHAEL KOHLHAAS / HEINRICH VON KLEIST
THE BEACH OF FALESÁ / ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
THE ETERNAL HUSBAND / FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG / MARK TWAIN
THE LIFTED VEIL / GEORGE ELIOT
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES / HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING / WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
BENITO CERENO / HERMAN MELVILLE
MATHILDA / MARY SHELLEY
STEMPENYU: A JEWISH ROMANCE / SHOLEM ALEICHEM
FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES / JOSEPH CONRAD
HOW THE TWO IVANS QUARRELLED / NIKOLAI GOGOL
MAY DAY / F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
RASSELAS, PRINCE ABYSSINIA / SAMUEL JOHNSON
THE DIALOGUE OF THE DOGS / MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
THE LEMOINE AFFAIR / MARCEL PROUST
THE COXON FUND / HENRY JAMES
THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH / LEO TOLSTOY
TALES OF BELKIN / ALEXANDER PUSHKIN
THE AWAKENING / KATE CHOPIN
ADOLPHE / BENJAMIN CONSTANT
THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS / SARAH ORNE JEWETT
PARNASSUS ON WHEELS / CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
THE NICE OLD MAN AND THE PRETTY GIRL / ITALO SVEVO
LADY SUSAN / JANE AUSTEN
JACOB’S ROOM / VIRGINIA WOOLF
TITLES IN THE COMPANION SERIES
THE CONTEMPORARY ART OF THE NOVELLA
THE PATHSEEKER / IMRE KERTÉSZ
THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR / GILBERT ADAIR
THE NORTH OF GOD / STEVE STERN
CUSTOMER SERVICE / BENOÎT DUTEURTRE
BONSAI / ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA
ILLUSION OF RETURN / SAMIR EL-YOUSSEF
CLOSE TO JEDENEW / KEVIN VENNEMAN
A HAPPY MAN / HANSJÖRG SCHERTENLEIB
SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL / TAO LIN
LUCINELLA / LORE SEGAL
SANDOKAN / NANNI BALESTRINI
THE UNION JACK / IMRE KERTÉSZ